Thursday, September 28, 2017

FUNNY, RIGHT-WINGERS, I NEVER HEAR YOU SAY THAT OBAMA WAS MISLED BY HIS ADVISERS

In Indianapolis yesterday, he bragged that it's the "largest tax cut in our county's history." But in the West Wing earlier, Trump resisted the framework that had been cooked up by congressional leaders, plus economic adviser Gary Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin....

On Monday, there were some tense moments for Republicans at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, as word got out Trump wasn't thrilled with the framework, sources tell Axios' Jonathan Swan.

Trump wanted to propose an even lower corporate rate. It's "The Art of the Deal": Don't open the bidding with the number you ultimately want — 20% (the figure announced yesterday), down from 35%. Open with an extreme bid and work back. Trump wanted to propose 15%.

Trump was also attuned to the political risks of raising the bottom rate from 10% to 12%, while cutting the top individual rate....

On Monday, Republicans on the Hill were genuinely uneasy, and thought there was a chance POTUS wouldn't sign off.

If this tax plan goes down in flames, Trump apologists will probably claim that it failed because congressional Republicans and White House "Democrats" acted as saboteurs of the #MAGA agenda. We're already being told that people who don't have Trump's best interests at heart urged him to support the now-defeated Luther Strange in the Alabama Senate race. And we're frequently told that much of Trumpism is under daily assault from phony so-called allies who are secretly working for globalism and the Deep State. Here's Frank Gaffney claiming that Trump might not fully withdraw from the Iran deal because "disloyal" H.R. McMaster might persuade him to decertify the deal but remain in it.

“They tried to destroy Donald Trump; the same gang that is going after Roy Moore is the same gang that went after Donald Trump,” Bannon said. “And I have to tell you, I think at some time later after [Tuesday], a real, you know, review has to be done of how President Trump got the wrong information and came down on the wrong side of the football here.”

The Washington Post's Aaron Blake responded:

But making that argument — that Trump was duped — also means arguing that he is capable of being duped, and apparently rather easily in this case. Inherent in Bannon's argument is the idea that Trump either isn't discerning enough to make that endorsement decision for himself, or at least that he doesn't do enough homework.

Bannon is basically confirming everything aides have said privately about how unsophisticated Trump is in consuming information. This is the president of the United States, and Bannon is talking about him as if he's still a total political novice — a weather vane, even.

The strangest thing about this is that it's an argument that's readily assented to by Trump's most fervent supporters. They told us that he alone had the smarts and the will to make big changes in Washington. They told us that he was the shrewdest dealmaker who ever lived. Yet if (as is likely) he never gets up to speed, they're still going to say this about him, while also saying he's very easily led astray.

I don't really believe there's any way to overcome this degree of denial. But I'm going to try.

Deplorables, why didn't this ever happen to Barack Obama?

You've told us for years that Obama was stupid and lazy, a guy who just liked to play golf and who couldn't utter a coherent thought unless he read it from a Teleprompter. You told us in 2008 that he was far too inexperienced and unqualified to be president.

You'd think a guy like that would be putty in the hands of slickster advisers and backstabbing so-called allies. You'd think he'd constantly be doing things against his own interests.

And yet when you talk about Obama, you describe him as having many sinister plans to destroy America, all of which he executed flawlessly. You describe his administration as a like-minded cabal who were all in on his nefarious schemes. Hillary Clinton, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Eric Holder, Lois Lerner -- there were no Obama saboteurs there, from what you tell me.

So do you think maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump isn't as smart as Barack Obama -- by your own admission?